Re: Opinions please

[Ad absurdum per aspera <jtchew -at- CSA3 -dot- LBL -dot- GOV>]

>> What  points would you pass on to them as the key fundamentals of
>> technical writing?

{Len's good advice deleted}

* Immerse yourself in the subject matter.  You might not become
  a subject-matter expert to the point of being able to do
  original, creative work, but you sure as heck won't be able
  to write with accuracy, completeness, and verisimilitude
  about something you don't understand.  Feel proud, not ashamed,
  when you observe that no more than a third of the stuff in your
  notebook ever makes it into print.

* If something is too hard to explain, maybe it could be made
  simpler... and maybe, as the first person who tried to explain
  it to outsiders, you're the one to figure out how, or at least
  point out the problem.

* Get to the point.  Shorten and simplify ruthlessly at the
  sentence, paragraph, and even chapter levels, starting
  with your own embellishments upon the basic subject matter.
  Remember also that the meat of your story is usually in the
  middle -- a "false lede" and a contrived attempt at a tidy
  conclusion should be among the first candidates for the ax.

* Never even consider writing a caption or cutline for an
  illustration you aren't looking at.

* Own your work.  The moral courage to decide what it should be
  and stand up for it, combined with the skill to be right in
  these matters, is what separates a professional communicator
  from any old 8-to-5 drudge with a typewriter.  Owning your
  work also implies seeing it through.  There's a lot more to
  writing than putting words on paper -- and a lot more to
  achieving total quality in publications than writing.

* You can't never edit or evan proofread your own work work and
  computers, which don't know grammar very well yet much less
  have taste are useful for the first pass) but are no substitute
  for a real editor.  :)

Good luck,
Joe
"The pallid pimp of the dead-line/The enervate of the pen" -Robert Service